Saturday, December 28, 2013

Each year during the holiday season, I write a nature essay and this year it's about birds and migration. essay below The photo is one of my husband Bob's and let me tell you, it's not easy to find a still hummingbird. CS

Hope is the thing with feathers that
perches in the soul. So wrote Emily Dickinson.

Perhaps no feathered creature represents hope
more than the magical hummingbird. Seeing one makes a person believe in nature’s
magic and orthinologists still work to understand the mysteries of this tiny
bird. They believe that hummers evolved from a tropical species to their present
form after the Ice Age, expanding their range in search of new food sources. What
is known is that each hummingbird generally migrates alone, flying fast and far
toward a warm future. In truth, all migrating birds are puzzles of nature. No
one knows for certain how they know where to go or how to get there. Those who
study such things speculate that hummingbirds fly south at low altitudes looking
for flowers in blossom or still lively insects. This contrasts to other migratory
birds that travel high using the position of the sun or those that look down
for large landmarks below: lakes, desert edges, mountain highs. Or birds that
fly through the lofty darkness with the night sky their map and the stars their
compass. But only each bird knows for sure. For us, winters would seem longer
without the birds that don’t migrate. Even when temperatures drop like apples
from Newton’s tree, many resident birds stay on to brave the Nebraska winters. Sometimes
our robins migrate and sometimes don’t, but they always indulge in autumn
hackberry feeding orgies alongside the house. This year the berries turned from
green to red, but no robins arrived. Bob and I worried about the missing winged
clientele, until finally in mid-October, wings and more wings of robins cut
through the air to thrash about the hackberry tree. We didn’t know what bird
appointments had detained them, only that they’d arrived. That day, they
devoured half the berries, then disappeared. Not until mid-November did they dive
bomb the tree again and again, snapping up ripe berries in a rush. When I
looked out later, the crop was gone as the first snowflakes of winter floated
down. If the robins planned to migrate this year, they’d arrived for their departure
meal in the nick of time. If they planned to stick around, they’d feasted in
preparation for the cold months ahead. I’m certain none of it was accidental, but
rather some inner birdly sense of seasons and weather. Remembering Emily Dickinson, when dreary
winter days drift down from heaven, I wait for wings to bring us hope of sunny times
ahead. With downy woodpeckers, scarlet cardinals, snow birds, and blue jays
feathering the frigid air with color and call, I wish you a similar hope, coupled
with the mystique of feathered friends filling your souls

About Me

Wrote The Desert Eternal, Legend of Brook Hollow, Cowboys & Wild, Wild Things. These books are illustrated with my husband Bob's photography. New books this year are Powerball 33 and Lincoln & the Gettysburg Address, about 3 days in his life and our country.

New cozy mystery coming out May 1, 2015 THE EROTICA BOOK CLUB FOR NICE LADIES. It's about a librarian with her own bookmobile who arrives in a small California town and is asked to start a secret book club by 2 women curious about erotica. The librarian who loves classic literature starts them off reading Emily Dickinson, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The mystery concerns a stolen, ancient book of herbal cures and how the book club ladies get entangled in the serious crime wave that washes over the town.